Page:Southern Historical Society Papers volume 02.djvu/21

Rh and the roads favorable, orders were given for a general movement of all the armies not later than the 4th of May."

The movement under the immediate superintendence of Grant, on the Rapidan, begun in fact on the night of the 3d, with the Army of the Potomac and the Ninth Corps, and the foregoing extracts from Grant's report show that the armies under Butler and Sigel constituted no part of the force which Mr. Stanton sets down at 141,160, on the 1st of May, 1864. The above statement from Stanton's report shows that there was in the "Department of Washington," at the very same time, an available force for duty of 42,124, and in the "Middle Department" (at Baltimore) a like force of 5,627, making an aggregate force of 47,751 within a few hours' run of Grant's army by rail and steamboat. So that, with the force of 59,139 in the Department of Virginia and North Carolina, and of 30,782 in the Department of West Virginia, Grant had, besides his army on the Rapidan, an available force of 137,672 to draw upon for his operations in Virginia, making in fact in all a force of 278,832 immediately available for that purpose, besides what could be drawn from other quarters where there was no hostile force to confront. That nearly the whole force at Washington and Baltimore was added to his army before it reached James River, is shown by the following extract from Mr. Stanton's report. On page 7 he says:

"Meanwhile, in order to repair the losses of the Army of the Potomac, the chief part of the force designed to guard the middle department and the department of Washington was called forward to the front. Taking advantage of this state of affairs, in the absence of General Hunter's command, the enemy made a large detachment from their army at Richmond, which, under General Early, moved down the Shenandoah Valley, threatening Baltimore and Washington."

The reinforcements from Washington and Baltimore actually reached Grant at Spotsylvania Courthouse, where, he says: "The 13th, 14th, 15th, 16th, 17th and 18th (of May) were consumed in manœuvring and awaiting the arrival of reinforcements from Washington;", and this was before General Lee had been reinforced by a solitary man. In addition to these reinforcements, Mr. Stanton says, on page 46, near the conclusion of his report, that the Governors of Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Iowa and Wisconsin, tendered 85,000 hundred days' men on the 21st of April, 1864, to be raised in twenty days, which were accepted, and the greater part of which were raised, and that they supplied garrisons and relieved